Mia is
always looking for signs. A sign that she should get serious with her
soccer-captain boyfriend. A sign that she’ll get the grades to make it into an
Ivy-league school. One sign she didn’t
expect to look for was: “Will I survive cancer?” It’s a question her friends
would never understand, prompting Mia to keep her illness a secret. The only
one who knows is her lifelong best friend, Gyver, who is poised to be so much
more. Mia is determined to survive, but when you have so much going your way,
there is so much more to lose.

From debut
author Tiffany Schmidt comes a heart-wrenching and ultimately uplifting story
of one girl’s search for signs of life in the face of death.

Why I’m Waiting: I looooove books that deal
with tough issues like this. And I LOVE best friend stories. So excited for
this one!

What are you waiting on this Wednesday? Share in
the comments and I’ll come visit!

A sexy and
poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.

High school
senior Leah Jones loves nothing more than flying. While she’s in the air, it’s
easy to forget life with her absentee mother at the low-rent end of a South
Carolina beach town. When her flight instructor, Mr. Hall, hires to fly for his
banner advertising business, she sees it as her ticket out of the trailer park.
And when he dies suddenly, she’s afraid her flying career is gone forever.

But Mr.
Hall’s teenage sons, golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson, are
determined to keep the banner planes flying. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson
for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed
business – until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret.
Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own,
reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between
brothers – and the consequences could be deadly.

It’s no secret that I ADORE Jennifer Echols. And
whenever I’m asked which book is my favorite, I say The Boys Next Door pretty much automatically, because it is. But
overall, between her romantic comedies and her romantic dramas, my heart melts
a little more for her dramas. SO. What does this have to do with Such a Rush, you wonder?

To me, Such
a Rush felt like the perfect combination of The Boys Next Door and her romantic dramas. Some of my favorite
elements of The Boys Next Door are
there: a girl getting caught up in the drama between two brothers, fake
relationships, real fights, and more secrets than anyone knows what to do with…
But it has that mature, intense feel of her dramas, both in terms of actual
content (we all know Jennifer can write a steamy love scene like nobody’s
business), and in terms of motivations and consequences. This isn’t just fun,
high school fluff, this is real life, and the tension (sexual and otherwise :P)
that Jennifer builds is fantastic.

And through it all is that signature style of sass
and humor that she does so well and
that I am so in love with. One of my favorite lines, and I’m not even sure why
it stuck with me so much, is after a helicopter unexpectedly lands at the
airport and a group gets out and heads toward Leah and the other people working
at the airport:

“The
lieutenant leading the group was a tall blond. I couldn’t tell for sure since
he was wearing mirrored shades, but I thought he was boyishly handsome, like
Alec. He came straight for me because, dressed in a bikini top, I was obviously
in charge of this airport.”

HA! The whole book is full of that snarky kind of
humor. I love it.

And if you’ve ever harbored any kind of secret
desire to become a pilot, Such a Rush
will completely hit the spot and make you look up the nearest flight school.
Both the emotional and the practical details of flying a plane were incredible;
I felt like I was right there with Leah every step of the way. Oh, and going to
prom in a limo? Officially not cool enough. (No offense to any limo-goers out
there.)

I absolutely LOVE Such a Rush. Jennifer Echols has totally outdone herself and this
is possibly my new favorite from her. I’m so excited for her next book (as
always) but at the same time I just want to bask in the awesomeness of this
one. Such a Rush has characters that
will wrap you around their little fingers and make you care SO MUCH about them,
drama that will make you laugh, cheer, and growl in frustration, sexy times
that will make you sigh and swoon, and a last line that will put a smile on
your face and (if you’re as emotional as I am) a tear in your eye.

You MUST read this book. This is contemporary at
its finest, folks, right here. <3

Van Weston
should have died in the category five tornado that killed his parents. Instead,
he woke up in a pile of rubble with no memories of his past – except one: a
beautiful, dark-haired girl standing in the winds. She’s swept through his
dreams ever since, and he clings to the hope that she’s real.

Audra is
real, but she isn’t human. She’s a sylph, an air elemental who can walk on the
wind, translate its alluring songs, even twist it into a weapon. She’s also a
guardian – Vane’s guardian – and has sworn an oath to protect him at all costs.

When a hasty
mistake reveals their location to the enemy who murdered both of their
families, Audra has just days to help Vane unlock his memories. And as the
storm winds gather, they start to realize the greatest danger might not be the
warriors coming to destroy them, but the forbidden romance growing between
them.

Set amongst
the desert airstreams of Coachella Valley in California, Let the Sky Fall is about two teenagers broken by their
pasts, divided by their futures, and bound by love.

Why I’m Waiting: This book sounds so
incredible! Although the early reviews are actually making me even more excited
than the summary. One in particular compares it to both Melina Marchetta’s On the Jellicoe Road and Kristin Cashore’s
Graceling. If that’s not intriguing I
don’t know what is.

What are you waiting on this Wednesday? Share in
the comments and I’ll come visit!

“One thing my mother never knew, and would disapprove of most of all, was that I watched the Garretts. All the time.”

The Garretts are everything the Reeds are not. Loud, numerous, messy, affectionate. And every day from her balcony perch, seventeen-year-old Samantha Reed wishes she was one of them… until one summer evening Jase Garrett climbs her trellis and changes everything. As the two fall fiercely in love and stumble through the awkwardness and awesomeness of first romance, Jase’s family makes Samantha one of their own – even as she keeps him a secret from her disapproving mother and critical best friend. Then the unthinkable happens, and the bottom drops out of Samantha’s world. She’s suddenly faced with an impossible decision. Which perfect family will save her? Or is it time she saved herself?

A debut novel about family, friendship, first romance, and how to be true to one person you love without betraying another.

Oh my goodness, I looooooooooved this book. It is an absolutely amazing debut and definitely stands out among YA contemporaries. To be honest, I was expecting a pretty standard story, but Huntley Fitzpatrick blew me away and I got so much more than that. I read it as part of an ARC tour and almost didn't sign up for it, but I'm soooooo glad I did. I barely put the book down once I started, and after I finished I kept wishing that I was still reading it.

The Garretts are, hands-down, my favorite part of the story. They are such a wonderful family and I fell completely in love with them almost instantly. (Especially the darling four-year-old George. Can I please please have a George in my life??). I adore stories about big, loving families (the Weasleys, anyone?), and this is no exception. From the minute Sam entered their world I was grinning like a fool pretty much the whole time. I want to have a large family myself (although I think I’m planning to stop at six kids, haha), and this book totally reaffirmed that desire. The craziness and love is just portrayed so perfectly. I also really love the contrast with Sam’s own family; how she escapes into the world of the Garretts and finds a whole new life for herself. I loved watching her grow as a result of her interactions with a family so different than her own.

And the romance! Oh my. The romance in this story is so achingly sweet. Sam and Jase are ADORABLE. I felt like they had such a mature relationship, which was a really refreshing change from the silly drama that seems to be present in so many other high school romance stories. I was pleasantly surprised by how they handled certain situations, and many times I could be found clutching the book to my chest in happiness. And although the focus of the book is on Jase and Sam, I would be remiss not to also mention Nan, Sam’s best friend, and her brother Tim, both of whom I loved – the story would not be complete without them.

I knew from the blurb that there was going to be some kind of Bad Event, and once I got a little more than halfway through the book I started anxiously anticipating. I had several predictions about what might happen (and was very nervous for the safety and happiness of all my beloved characters), but I absolutely didn’t see it coming. It’s a shocking and heart wrenching twist, and it makes the story that much more compelling. My heart ached for Sam, but at the same time it allowed for some really wonderful moments between her and various other characters, as well as for her own personal development. There were just a couple of things that I wish had been resolved a little more before the book ended, but they were fairly minor.

My Life Next Door is a beautifully written story that captures a summer romance perfectly. Your emotions will be all over the place and you will love it. This is one of my new favorite contemporaries and I am so so excited to read more from Huntley Fitzpatrick. If you’re a fan of authors like Sarah Dessen, Elizabeth Scott, or Sarah Ockler, you WILL NOT want to miss this book.

And just as a final note, I read this in February, but it happened to be a rare 80 degree day and I just went outside and sat in the grass and ate a popsicle and enjoyed the sun and read nonstop and it was SO PERFECT. I’m so glad this is coming out in June, because it is JUST the thing for an amazing summer read. You can feel the heat coming off the pages. Take it poolside with you, you won’t be sorry.